With so much quality work set to take to the stage in Tacoma and Lakewood over the next few months, the choices can be a little daunting. In the interest of narrowing things down, here are a few productions we’ve got our eyes on.
Olympia Family Theater Artistic Director Lily Raabe has resigned to spend more time writing and traveling. The company has hired its first executive director, Olympia actor Mark Alford.
On Sept. 16 and 17, locals will get a chance to learn the rest of the story at Bryan Willis’ Hotel Olympian Gala Extravaganza, a play that re-creates the hotel’s grand opening.
Olympe de Gouges announces at the opening of Harlequin’s “The Revolutionists” that she has an idea for a new play, a comedy, and much of the play follows her attempts to right/write the wrongs of the Revolution in a play “about women showing the boys how revolutions are done.”
“It’s a little bit of Halloween in the summer,” said Pug Bujeaud, the play’s director and a TAO mainstay. “It’s fun and quirky and dark. It’s very much an old-school TAO show. The basis of the show is ‘What is a forgivable sin? … What lines do you draw? How do you decide what behaviors are acceptable and what behaviors — or people — you have to cut out of your life?”
Olympia and the surrounding communities are home to many truly stellar theater companies. They are passionate about their work, fabulously talented, truly dedicated, and fiercely hardworking.
“Comedy and tragedy are just a second apart from each other,” said String and Shadow’s Donald Palardy III, who’s playing one of the fools. “We want people to come and to laugh. That is the goal. It’s like Looney Tunes. Looney Tunes is for kids, but there’s a lot of adult humor, sometimes peeking out of the surface and sometimes just under the surface.”
Falsettos at Harlequin is a sung-through musical. It begins light-hearted and quirky, and soon becomes deadly serious.
Capital City Pride 2023 – Embracing Sustainability, Diversity and Community Growth – invites individuals from all walks of life to gather at the Tivoli Fountain on the Capitol Campus at 9 a.m. July 1 for a day of solidarity and positive protest.
There’s so much happening at Lakewold Gardens this summer it’s well worth the drive.